


you'll be the death of me

by mirukoswife



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Oneshot, bonnie being a stubborn FOOL, this isnt even really ANGSTY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19396024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirukoswife/pseuds/mirukoswife
Summary: There’s a bouquet of red in her chest and she refuses to allow it to kill her.





	you'll be the death of me

**Author's Note:**

> create the bubbline content u wanna see i guess

She supposed that when it came down to it, it was the emotional nature of the disease that put her on edge. It was interesting, of course, and she liked to pore over the ancient texts detailing humanity's struggles with it. Pictures of funeral pyres with descriptions of the burning flesh of the flowers that slowly suffocated their victims, medical reports with clean lines over the patient's chests and reported feelings of grief over what they had lost.

Why hadn't the dead rushed to surgery at the first sign? Why had so many of them admitted to hiding the petals, hiding them away with something akin to possessiveness? It had seemed strange to her for someone to be so protective over the very thing that was killing them. And even more unusual still for someone to not want to live, to rather die with the weight of their feelings on their chest, filling up their lungs and choking them from the inside out.

Yeah, Bonnibel didn't understand at all. Even standing in front of her lab desk, a finger (that was very determinedly not shaking) stroking the soft amaryllis petal that had floated down to compliment the pink of the surface below it with its benign red hue.

A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat at the thought of calling it benign. It tickled at her until she was forced to cough it out, the sound gaining in hysteria as more red petals came out with it.

She was going to cut it out. Split open her chest and drag it out before it even has the chance to grow flowers to push past her teeth. She wouldn't allow some silly unrequited feelings to put her life, her kingdom, her _people_ in danger. To put all of that in jeopardy just because she still had feelings for someone she had already split from- Bonnibel is better than that. She knew what to prioritize and how.

Just...it would have to wait until she had time. When she was finished dealing with the latest bout of problems that life's happenings had decided to cook up and slap into her face. She would get to it, no doubt about that, just. When she could.

She wasn't going to let it kill her, she would still throw those feelings where they belong- in the trash. If she were an actual human, she would be doing the surgery immediately, but it's not as if she isn't a little hardier and stretchy than those fragile lumps. The operation could wait until after she sorted out the more important stuff, but she _would_ get around to it. She would.

The days stretched into weeks before she breathed out another puff of red. She had been carefully sorting out her clothing and came across a shirt that she still didn't have the strength to wear again. Even while holding it, she could smell Marceline. The petals spared the shirt no mercy, clinging to the fabric. Bonnibel swept them into her palm with a grimace, just grateful that it hadn't happened in front of anyone. Explaining what Hanahaki was and why she had it would be both awkward and exhausting. It would be better if no one were to know. Especially Marceline. Not that she would even have had the chance to tell the vampire even if she wanted to; she hadn't seen her in years. She coughed again, eyes squeezed shut as the amaryllis petals wrenched themselves out of her throat. Bonnibel gave the petals a look of undeserving betrayal and told herself firmly that it was the time to choose a date for the surgery. The sooner, the better.

But then Finn tripped into her life.

She had been so caught up in her work and citizens and the Problem that the human was like a breath of fresh air, clearing away the dust in her throat. It felt nice to focus on something else, on someone else other than just herself and her people. It felt like her world had gained a burst of brightness, bringing back some of the colour that had bled away when Marceline left.

Unfortunately, that was another thing that Finn brought back into her life. Marceline.

Marceline, floating alongside Finn and Jake as they went off on their adventures. Marceline, snarking at her and being snarked right back at by Bonnibel, petals hidden under her tongue and arms crossed firmly across of her chest as if it could help her guard herself against the effects that Marceline somehow still had on her.

It's not that Bonnibel was weak. She wasn't weak. The fact that she could cough up more and more red petals into her hands and still keep going, barely hindered, was proof enough.

She knew she should have the surgery. She kept putting it off, and she didn't want to think about the reason why. Hanahaki was a word she still refused to even say out loud, the quiet fear of the reality of her situation keeping her selectively mute. Most of the time, she didn't acknowledge that it was something that had ever happened, even when they spoke of humanity's past.

It stayed that way until she saw the first dahlia petal fell from Finn's lips. Bonnibel felt the pink drain from her face at the sight of it, even as Finn just gave a rueful smile and gently took the petal between his fingers. The look he gave the orange sign of death was so tender that it made her own petals prick at her throat.

She asked him if he wanted her to help him, to get rid of them for him, and he flinched away from her. She didn't understand. The way he clutched the petal to his chest, even as more bubbled between his lips, in such a protective manner made Bonnibel's own lips wobble.

"I don't want to forget how much I love her." He explained, sounding as if it were something easy. "Besides, just because it's Hanahaki doesn't mean that it's _necessarily_ unrequited. I mean, I know that we- that we aren't, not anymore but..." Finn had trailed off then, his face screwed up in something that split between hope and grief. Bonnibel felt her face match his expression in something almost similar, the taste of sorrow on her tongue.

Finn had panicked then, raising his hands to rest upon her shoulders. "Don't worry, Princess!" He hastily attempted to soothe her worries. "It's really not that big of a deal!" She wanted to laugh. Not a big deal? They were both suffocating themselves, unwilling to save themselves out of their own selfish need to grip onto their feelings. How was that not a big deal?

The princess is so hypocritical.

Her human friend kept rambling. She took a deep breath before trying to calm him down but choked.

Red joined orange on the floor between them. Finn fell silent.

"I won't tell if you don't tell Jake about _my_ flowers." He whispered. Bonnibel swallowed down a wayward petal and gave him a jerky nod. The two of them sat together until the sunset in the distance, and she finally talked about it. About Marceline. About what they were and what she had lost and how it was her fault.

The words had poured out as roughly as the petals did, scratching her throat and leaving her with a sense of relief as if a weight had been lifted off of her. She wondered if this was why people had friends. She wondered why she never felt like this when she was with the citizens she created. Maybe it was because it was Finn. Finn was so good, someone she much adored. As they sat there, their hands over the top of one another in comfort, Bonnibel grimly realized that she couldn't keep her promise to him.

Finn wouldn't be allowed to die. If he didn't wish to sacrifice his feelings, she would just have to do things another way. With the determination of someone going to war, Bonnibel did the unthinkable and enlisted in the help of the very vampire that bred flowers in her lungs.

They laid out the most complicated of plans, spent hours together formulating the exact way they would go about this to either have the Flame Princess and Finn reconcile or to find the easiest way for Finn to move on to something or someone else. Marceline was a whirlwind of energy, worried for her human friend and bearing more knowledge of the disease than Bonnibel would have thought the vampire would.

Being discrete about the petals the pushed and fought to be expelled was hard. Breathing itself was getting hard. They had become something like friends, and it ached in her chest. It felt so lovely, so familiar, to banter and laugh together that it was enough to make up for the pain.

Bonnibel could understand why some of the humans had decided to die with flowers in their lungs and petals on their tongue. She thought she could accept that type of ending. It seemed suitable.

Maybe it was her acceptance of the amaryllis that made her subconsciously lower her defences. Letting herself revel in her love for Marceline, a love that had never lessened throughout the years, felt too good and too satisfying to regret what would be waiting for her.

Finn and the Flame Princess got back together before they could even decide on the perfect course of action and Marceline swung her arm around Bonnibel's shoulders after a moment of stunned silence, grey shoulders shaking with relieved laughter. Her cheeks stained with pink as she laughed with her, pretending that her own trembles were also singularly from relief. She had forgotten how it felt to have Marceline wrapped around her.

They only grew closer after that. It felt tortuous and perfect, and Bonnibel learnt how to pick out the scent of amaryllis from all of the sweets and non-lethal flowers of the world around them. She grew to love the red that would push between her lips, proof of her love.

There was no lying to Finn about the state of her condition. He heard her voice slowly become more hoarse from the scratching of her throat, knew the signs of petals turning into buds that got less and less small as time went on, demanding to get out. He begged her to do something about it, to at least tell Marceline.

"I will," She kept promising him, following up each empty promise with a stipulation. They just had so many things to do that would be so awkward if it had to happen after she told Marceline the true depths of her feelings. It was just easier this way.

Denial made everything easier.

Truthfully she was a little worried that Finn would say something on her behalf, the way she had for him, but he was too earnest to do something that might exacerbate the almost fully grown buds that were clawing their way up her throat. Instead, the fault laid on her.

And Marceline.

They were sitting on the roof of her bedroom's balcony, the glow of the moon making Marceline look even more radiant and soft than usual. Bonnibel told her of the latest escapades of her citizens, laying her cheek against her knees as she watched the side profile of her friend.

Something she said drew a laugh out from Marceline, and it made something deep in her clench up in sharp pain. Everything about Marceline was pretty, even the rough and ugly bits, but her laugh was probably one of the prettiest.

Her face must have looked as pained as she felt because all of a sudden Marceline was turning towards her, a hand reaching out as if to touch her and it _hurt_. It hurt that she wouldn't have the right to be the one Marceline was the most open around, would never get to feel Marceline's beautiful laugh against her lips again, that she would never again get to wake up beside her in the bed under the same sheets. Bonnibel jerked away from the grey hand, turning as she hacked out the flowers with ugly, disgusting sounds.

She didn't have to look at her lap to know that the buds were stained with the pink of her own blood. She didn't have to, but that's where she trained her gaze anyway, unwilling to see the confusion and pity on Marceline's face.

Marceline had frozen still, her hand still hovering in the air before falling down uselessly. Bonnibel opened her mouth, unsure what excuse to use, but she wasn't given a chance to even defend herself before Marceline was reaching once more. Into her lap. Picking up the wet petals with barely a grimace.

Bonnibel lifted her head to gape at her, lips parted in shock. Marceline ignored her, squinting down at the petals in her hand.

"Not gonna lie, Bonnie," The vampire started off in a wavering voice that was obviously trying its hardest to seem dry. Her eyes were too wet to pull it off. "I don't know what kind of flowers these are, but I'm pretty sure I claimed the whole, y'know, red thing on principle."

The princess's mouth closed before opening again and then closing with a Look that would usually make Marceline at least back off a little. Unfortunately, the vampire seemed to have gained some resistance to it and just lifted her eyes to meet Bonnibel's.

Her throat _and_ mouth were dry now. "That's a bit greedy of you, Marcy. Other people might want to be associated with it, as well. It's a popular colour."

Marceline closed her fingers over the petals. "Yeah, well. Guess I'm greedy. You know anyone else who got a red thing going on?"

Swallowing thickly hurt her throat, but it was what happened anyway. "No." Her admittance was quiet.

The smile Marceline gave her was somehow more beautiful than any other she had ever received from the vampire. "Good." And then, before Bonnibel even got the chance to think about what her response meant, Marceline leaned over and kissed her.

Oh.

Well then.

Bonnibel knew it would all work out in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> look i never said it would be GOOD content


End file.
